Tesla Model S Wins Consumer Reports Best Overall Car 2014

Tesla continues to do to the rest of the automotive world what SpaceX is doing to the aerospace industry; make us all wonder if everyone has just been dialing it in for far too long now.

Adding to its growing list of accomplishments, the Tesla Model S has been named the Consumer Reports Best Overall Car for 2014.

It is the first time an American built car has ever won. (Trucks are another matter)

The reason why Innerspace.net regularly reports on Tesla is outlined in a number of previous posts such as this one, but a Bloomberg BusinessWeek story on the CR award sums it up nicely:

The top model ranking for the youngest U.S. automaker may further the profile of Palo Alto, California-based Tesla, which has said Model S deliveries should increase about 56 percent to 35,000 cars this year. Tesla could almost double its share of the global car market to 1 percent if it succeeds in lowering battery costs, said Adam Jonas, a Morgan Stanley analyst.

“If it can be a leader in commercializing battery packs, investors may never look at Tesla the same way again,” Jonas, who rates the shares overweight, wrote in a note to clients. “If Tesla can become the world’s low-cost producer in energy storage, we see significant optionality for Tesla to disrupt adjacent industries.” ”

If Tesla is successful, advances in energy storage will do some disrupting on more than one world. Mars awaits. Getting there will be a challenge, Entry, Descent and Landing will be akin to either a nightmare or the solar system’s most thrilling amusement park ride depending on your point of view, but when it comes to staying there, warm, basically safe and possibly even happy, it may all come down to the amount of available energy. We know how to collect it. Storage is the key.